


3-Ecstasties

by WritestuffLee



Series: The Warrior's Heart, Volume 1, Early Days [3]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-08-31
Updated: 1999-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:02:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritestuffLee/pseuds/WritestuffLee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Qui-Gon learns to receive and not just take.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3-Ecstasties

“Enough! Oh gods Qui-Gon, please! Enough! Stop it—please! Now! Hurry! Hurry!” Obi-Wan begged, on the verge of what felt like a seizure. Every nerve was blazing, the pleasure centers in his brain firing like rockets. Qui-Gon was torturing him. He loved every minute of it.

He lay sprawled across his master’s bed like a spaceport whore, feet on the ground, legs spread, Qui-Gon kneeling between them, driving him mad with mouth and fingers. Even now, Qui-Gon plunged a third slick finger into him where there had been two and ran his tongue under the sensitive ridge of Obi-Wan’s cock, then pressed hard against the underside to keep him from coming. The younger man thrashed and sank his fists into the sheets, head thrown back in a guttural moan.

_//Let me in, Love.//_

“Yes! Now, Qui-Gon. Now,” he gasped.

The fingers withdrew, leaving him stretched and ready for Qui-Gon’s cock, which slid inside him slowly and stayed still while he adjusted to the girth. The sensation was both vaguely uncomfortable and electrifying as he felt himself hugely, impossibly filled, that ring of muscles spasming down hard in response. He’d never imagined such a feeling, how intimate it was, being taken this way, eased open like a treasure box, penetrated and plundered, impaled by his lover’s flesh, vulnerable and yet utterly safe, reserve and flesh pierced with love—how strange and exquisite it was to have Qui-Gon inside him. _Inside_ him! Gods! He’d never felt so close to anyone before, so consumed by them. He wondered why he’d ever been hesitant about it.

His master grasped his hips and began to move, withdrawing slowly until he was almost out and plunging in again with a quick stroke that raked his prostate and sent jolts of lightning up his spine to explode in his head. Obi-Wan cried out, almost sobbing.

His legs trembled uncontrollably and he wrapped them around Qui-Gon’s waist, locking his ankles, drawing his master in deeper, until he could feel the older man’s balls pressed against his ass. “Stay there,” Obi-Wan panted, pulsing the tight ring of muscles. “I want to feel you inside me. Stay there. Don’t move.”

Qui-Gon did as he was asked, and ran his large hands over his lover’s chest and belly, down to his cock, stroking the fluid pearling at the tip down over the shaft with a lazy firmness that soon had Obi-Wan thrusting his hips up and back, torn between being penetrated and being enveloped. Qui-Gon quickened the pace of his strokes and thrust into his apprentice as Obi-Wan bucked against him. Very soon the pace built to a pounding rhythm that had him hanging onto whatever purchase and sanity he could find, mindlessly reaching for the last caress that would push him over the edge. His hand closed around Qui-Gon’s, guiding it to that point, and he came, shouting wordlessly, cum spattering both their hands, his stomach, the sheets as he thrashed.

And inside him, gloriously deep inside him, Qui-Gon came a moment later, holding Obi- Wan’s ass tightly against his groin, shuddering as his cock pulsed and spilled inside his lover. Qui- Gon’s head was thrown back, revealing a long, elegant line of throat behind the neatly trimmed fringe of beard beneath his chin. Obi-Wan watched him with greedy delight as he surrendered to his own pleasure, eyes closed, the lids flickering, mouth open and gasping, skin flushed and gleaming in the soft light of the bedroom. The sound that came from him was always the same: a gasping inhale, and a soft exhale of breath drawing with it a low groan that started somewhere deep in Qui-Gon’s belly. Obi-Wan could feel the sound in his bones, like a subterranean rumble.

Spent, his lover lowered himself onto Obi-Wan’s body, sleepily nuzzling his neck and shoulder. “Oh, Love,” he murmured. “It’s so good with you. I never imagined. . . .”

Obi-Wan ran his fingers through the heavy, silver-shot hair, robbed of speech, communicating his agreement through touch alone.

They stayed like that for several minutes, listening to each other’s hearts calm, before Obi-Wan settled his legs back on the floor and Qui-Gon leaned back and withdrew, his apprentice arching his hips in response and sighing. Qui-Gon touched his face gently, fingertips coming away filmed in salty moisture.

“Did I hurt you, Love?” he asked with some concern.

“No. No, Qui-Gon,” Obi-Wan responded, half laughing, and wiping his eyes. “I don’t know why I do that. It’s just so . . . intense, having you inside. I love it when you come in me.”

Qui-Gon swung his lover’s legs up onto the bed and lay his long body down beside him, hip to hip, legs entwined, propped on one elbow, his fingers tracing down the center line of Obi- Wan’s body from throat to groin and up again.

“Tell me what you feel when I’m inside you, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon murmured, his hand moving with hypnotic slowness, barely touching his lover’s skin.

The younger man closed his eyes, letting himself be lulled by Qui-Gon’s tactile sorcery. “It’s not quite real, yet,” Obi-Wan answered in a distant voice, half asleep. “But I wonder sometimes if I’m not merging into you. Losing myself. Disintegrating.”

There was indeed still an aura of unreality surrounding the fact that he was lying here beside his master in the afterglow and lethargy of lovemaking, but it was less the fact of their lives as Jedi than Qui-Gon’s heart that made it so. Such relationships between Jedi were rare things in themselves, and unheard of between a Jedi and one outside the Order, but his master was a passionate man, full of love. Obi-Wan was not the first of his lovers, though Qui-Gon had yet to tell him who was. And in the early years of Obi-Wan’s apprenticeship, Qui-Gon had been deeply in love with another knight, Tahl, whom he had known since childhood, and lost her. Obi-Wan had wondered then if his master could ever find it in himself to love another again.

Yet here they were, despite Qui-Gon’s former experiences and present misgivings, despite the age difference between them, despite their positions as master and padawan, despite the rule of Jedi stoicism.

“And are you lost, Beloved?” Qui-Gon murmured in his ear, tongue licking out to follow its whorls. Obi-Wan shuddered delicately. Yes, he was lost. Very lost. But he was not alone.

It seemed they’d hardly gotten out of bed since Qui-Gon had picked him up and dumped him into the middle of it three nights ago, as though years of need and passion were having their way with both of them. And it had been a true test of their control the next morning to give their mission report to the Council and senate committee who had sent them on their last mission, present their reports, listen to the stories of the other padawan and the older children they had rescued, answer questions, discuss interminably, make recommendations—and retain all their patience and decorum. Obi-Wan was convinced he should be given a medal for keeping himself from fidgeting, sighing, squirming, and revealing in other ways how badly he wanted to be back in their quarters with his master, in bed or wherever they could manage to get to. Qui-Gon, as usual, had been the complete picture of a serene Jedi Master, until the door of their quarters closed behind them and the lock had been keyed to the “Do Not Disturb” setting. Then he had revealed himself to be just as hungry as his new lover, taking Obi-Wan up against the door with clothing only half off and soon after wildly strewn about the room. In the hours that followed, lessons and training were forgotten, meals skipped or cobbled together, sleep snatched when neither of them was capable of staying conscious a moment longer. Obi-Wan was nearly at that point now. Qui-Gon had wound him up and spun him out and left him dangling bonelessly.

Though not inexperienced, Obi-Wan had barely imagined some of the things Qui-Gon had done to him, had barely imagined anything could feel quite as good as Qui-Gon was capable of making him feel. “Good” was a totally inadequate word, in fact. There were, he reflected, distinct advantages to having a lover 35 years older than one. He’d always thought “ecstatic” was an exaggeration when it came to sex, or most things, for that matter; his master had shown him differently.

Ecstasy at Qui-Gon’s hands came in many different shades and colors, as well: passionate, explosive ecstasy that was all heat and lightning, like it had just been; slow ecstasy that built gradually with touches and kisses and tender words, sometimes over an hour or more, then blossomed long and easy as he was finally entered or taken in; cunning ecstasy that crept up on him with some wicked twist of movement; sleepy, warm ecstasy, the kind he felt now, that was part the afterglow of orgasm and part gratitude and all love; the fierce ecstasy he’d endured when they’d come back to their quarters after the Senate debriefing and Qui-Gon had turned on him wildly and kissed him breathless, pulled open his tunic, perfunctorily slid his pants around his knees and nearly swallowed him whole; the contented ecstasy he’d felt last night leaning against Qui-Gon in the hot, fragrant water of their bath, soaping each other and kissing; the joyous, funny ecstasy of the tickling attacks and laughing fits they’d launched on each other and suffered under, leaving them gasping, sides aching, new spots for exquisite torture discovered; and the wondrous ecstasy of simply discovering one another, of finding the utterly new in the long-familiar, seeing each other with entirely fresh eyes. Amazing. Astonishing. Miraculous.

Exhausting. He drifted into sleep with Qui-Gon as his lover’s hand came to rest on his hip, pulling him closer, and tousled bedcovers settled over them magically.

When he woke again, it was light, late morning from the looks of it, and Qui-Gon—wonder of wonders—was still asleep. It was the first time Obi-Wan could ever remember his master not rising with the dawn and certainly long before he. They were lying side by side, Obi-Wan on his side with one arm thrown over Qui-Gon, who was lying on his back, looking exceptionally handsome, even in sleep. It wasn’t often Obi-Wan had the pleasure of seeing his master in unguarded moments. Qui-Gon seemed to be always awake, always alert, always controlled, even in meditation, even—Obi-Wan reflected wryly—taking a piss in the woods. Now, he looked almost entirely different, his mobile and often-amused mouth relaxed and open a little, the piercing eyes hidden, the weathered face smoothed of anxiety and watchfulness and younger in sleep: vulnerable, peaceful, more serene than Obi-Wan ever remembered seeing him. Released. Content.

Obi-Wan felt a glow tinged with darkness fill him, yet another kind of ecstasy, this one a little poignant. Before they had made the decision to sleep together, Obi-Wan had known little of Qui-Gon’s previous lovers, or whether he had even slept with Tahl. Now, Obi-Wan was certain those lovers had been if not many then at least talented—all he felt he had need to know, curiosity notwithstanding. He also realized now that the last one before Tahl had been some time ago, before Obi-Wan had known him, and that it had ended badly, not in death but in anger and bitterness. In the first real kiss they had shared, Obi-Wan had tasted not just desire, but tension and longing and fear not his own. He wondered then where it had come from and understood at least partially now.

He’d known from the moment Qui-Gon had first taken him in his arms that his master needed this as much as Obi-Wan wanted it. Qui-Gon needed—and wanted—him. Not just a good recreational, tension-releasing fuck, which he could get anywhere and any time and presumably had in the past, but him, specifically, for specific reasons. Obi-Wan had never felt so desired or desirable before, or so necessary. But in turn, he’d never before held someone else’s happiness in his hands nor wanted so much to be able to give it. For he found he wanted that for Qui-Gon. He wanted his master to be able to sleep this way, without care, without old pain, secure and peaceful, always. He wanted Qui-Gon to know how much he was loved, and how much his love, in turn, meant to Obi-Wan.

All at once, however, he realized that, so far, Qui-Gon had been the one doing most of the giving and showing. Not that Obi-Wan objected. His master seemed to have a bottomless bag of tricks he wanted to share, and they were all very enjoyable. But it suddenly felt a little selfish to be doing most of the receiving, although it was sometimes hard to tell which one of them was enjoying himself more. Qui-Gon had made him come over and over, and pleasured himself doing so, which was all very well, but giving had its own rewards. Obi-Wan wanted very much to return some of the pleasure he’d been receiving, to watch his lover’s face in an ecstasy he’d been brought to. He wanted to hear Qui-Gon cry out, knowing he’d made his master do so.

Qui-Gon rolled over against him, pulling him close in sleep, hard cock pressed between them as Obi-Wan nestled against him. He combed his fingers gently through his master’s sleep-tangled hair, pressing their foreheads together, and then kissed him, his eyelids, the space between his brows, his cheek, his temple, the salty skin beneath his earlobe. By the time Obi-Wan reached his mouth, Qui-Gon was awake again, reaching for him. Their arms slid around one another and Obi-Wan kissed Qui-Gon with all the tenderness inside him, giving him that tenderness like a gift. Sleepy gratitude and warmth spilled out across their bond in a wave.

Their mouths met and parted, met and parted, met and parted as they sipped and tasted one another like new wine. Finally, they pulled apart just a little and looked into each other’s eyes, cobalt blue into blue-grey, both of them smokey with slow-burning desire. Obi-Wan leaned forward and kissed his lover again, his hand on the back of Qui-Gon’s neck, his tongue plunging hungrily between the lips that opened beneath his. “My turn,” he murmured, returning to the kiss and rolling Qui-Gon onto his back.

_//Your turn,//_ Qui-Gon conceded. _//A lovely way to wake me up, my heart.//_ And it was. He smiled as Obi-Wan straddled him and moved his arms out to the sides, stroking slowly down from shoulders to fingertips repeatedly until there was a flow of energy between them that was almost visible. His apprentice gathered it to him skillfully and combed his fingers again through Qui-Gon’s hair, making his scalp prickle and the hair snap and fly away, strands untangling of their own accord, then moved his hands around to the back of his master’s neck, where that energy flowed down his spine in a tingling wave into his groin. Qui-Gon shuddered as it did, letting out a little sound of pleasure. Obi-Wan interlaced his fingers behind his lover’s neck and tugged upward until Qui-Gon’s head fell back, then rocked up and back a few times, loosening muscles he hadn’t known were tight. Qui-Gon sighed and sank into the bed, relinquishing himself to his apprentice, to his lover.

He still felt a little stunned at this new development himself, the depth of it, the intensity of the feelings he had not felt in years. Like many Jedi, he had had lovers in the past, though celibacy was more the rule than the exception in the order, simply because the kinds of lives they led did not encourage long-term relationships. But that kind of contact was something that Qui-Gon knew he needed, and it had never seemed wrong to him to love in turn where he was loved. At least not until Xan had betrayed him, and Tahl had died. And even with Tahl, he had not felt this deep desire that Obi-Wan aroused in him. His love for Tahl had been a warm refuge sheltering equals, where Obi-Wan filled him and scorched him in a way she hadn’t.

Obi-Wan’s broad fingers moved down over his body, just barely touching him, loosening knots, drawing his own energy and his master’s through the underlying nerves. The first time Obi-Wan had touched him this way, Qui-Gon had been amazed at the delicacy and skill, if not the already familiar agility, in those heavy hands. Now, Obi-Wan’s mouth followed after them, hotter and wetter and more insistent. The places Obi-Wan touched were not merely pressure points but spots that made him arch and gasp: the soft skin behind his earlobes and under his chin behind the neat beard, down his neck to the hollow of throat, across the line of collarbone, down to the tender flesh covering the edge of the pectorals outside his armpits, over his nipples, down the centerline of his muscular stomach. Even the dead scars over Qui-Gon’s ribcage, where he should have felt nothing, became lines of fiery ice when Obi-Wan traced them with his tongue. His apprentice touched and kissed him everywhere, finding every known spot and some new ones until Qui-Gon was moaning low in his throat and writhing under his lover’s touch.

He felt his legs gently spread with knees and one hand, while the other lazily circled his belly. Obi-Wan knelt there between Qui-Gon’s legs, his hands going back to where they had stopped and continuing down his hips, tongue dipping into his navel and sucking at it, fingers stroking the line of dark hair running from there to his groin. Following that line to its logical end, his lover closed a hand around the hardened, arching shaft of Qui-Gon’s cock and brought his lips down over the head of it, tongue circling and pressing the tip, licking the fluid from it. Qui-Gon let out a low, soft moan, feeling those mobile lips closing around him. Obi-Wan nibbled his way down the underside and licked upward, and Qui-Gon shuddered again and cried out. His hands played through Obi-Wan’s hair tentatively, not wanting to distract him but needing to touch him, to make sure he was real. Then his lover brought his mouth down fully over the head of Qui-Gon’s cock again and sucked hard. Qui-Gon moaned louder, thrusting his hips upward, and Obi-Wan obliged, taking him in more deeply, sucking hard and raking the shaft gently with lips and teeth, peeling away first coherence, then speech, then thought itself. Gods, he’d forgotten how good that felt! It has been so long. . . .

“No!” Qui-Gon gasped as he pulled away, vaguely surprised he still had any vocabulary.

“Shhhh, Love,” Obi-Wan hushed him, his own voice a little hoarse with arousal. He leaned up again, ducking in for a quick kiss and dangling the tail of his braid over Qui-Gon’s chest, teasing his nipples until they hardened, raising gooseflesh over his arms, and drawing it downward, painting a line of shivers down Qui-Gon.

Then he did the most extraordinary thing: he wrapped the braid several times in a tight ascending spiral around Qui-Gon’s cock until he’d brought his mouth back to it, took the crown in and pulled back quickly with a *pop* that made him grin wickedly and Qui-Gon jerk his hips and shout in surprise. Then Obi-Wan leaned back, tugging. Qui-Gon’s hips followed with it as the braid unwound itself, the slithery friction and torque producing a sensation he’d never felt before, pulling noises out of him that made it sound as if Obi-Wan were torturing him, which, in a sense, he was. It was, however, a marvelous form of it. Qui-Gon hoped he’d do it again.

So he did. This time, when the braid was unwound, Obi-Wan descended on his cock like a bird of prey, engulfing it, groaning low in his throat as Qui-Gon thrust into him, swallowing as he finally came, shouting and bucking, Obi-Wan milking the last of his orgasm and leaving him entirely spent and nearly unconscious. Distantly, he was aware he was sprawled and splayed across the sheets like a casualty, gasping as though he were in pain. Somewhere, someone muttered a terribly obscene string of curses in a number of languages. It might have been he.

When he opened his eyes again, Obi-Wan was sitting back on his heels between his legs, looking exceedingly pleased with himself, as he should have been. Qui-Gon’s apprentice leaned forward and took a bolster from head of the bed, then rummaged in the drawer of the bedside table until he found the well-used tube of lubricant. He ran his hands lightly over Qui-Gon’s thighs and grasped his hips. “Up, Love,” he said and slid the hard bolster under them when his master complied, groaning.

“Padawan, I do have certain limitations . . . “ Qui-Gon protested feebly.

“I’m not sure I believe you, Master, after the last three days,” Obi-Wan replied, one corner of his mouth quirked upward in the half-smile his master loved. He paused a moment, opening the tube, looking uncertain. “Is this . . .”

”You needn’t ask, my love,” Qui-Gon told him, still a little breathless. “Not here, remember?”

“It felt right to, somehow. Habit, perhaps.” He leaned over and kissed Qui-Gon, who drank it in hungrily, nipping his lower lip.

“I’m yours, Obi-Wan,” he said quietly, stroking the back of his knuckles against his apprentice’s cheek. “Do as you like.”

Obi-Wan took in his words of surrender with the same gravity he considered Qui-Gon’s lessons, honoring him with that solemn regard, but he was afraid his apprentice would bow right there on the bed, kneeling between his legs. He smiled at the image and that seemed to lighten Obi-Wan’s mood a little. “I want to do this right for you,” he said earnestly.

“You will. However you touch me is right,” Qui-Gon told him encouragingly, taking the tube from his hand and coating Obi-Wan’s fingers, one by one, with the contents, then stroking his apprentice’s erection with more.

Obi-Wan smiled. Soon, those fingers were caressing the tight ring of muscle in Qui-Gon’s ass and the sensitive flesh around it—another pleasure he’d almost forgotten. After a very short time, he felt himself growing hard again. *Amazing,* he thought dazedly, as Obi-Wan’s mouth descended on him again, coaxing him back to life,  _at my age._ His apprentice slipped a finger inside him, curling it against his prostate, and drew it slowly out again. Qui-Gon growled, “Oh, gods, Love! Don’t stop!” feeling his rationality slipping away.

The outside world drifted away from him and he let it go with only a twinge of conscience. After all, he’d let it go on without him since their report to the Senate—what was a few more hours? All that mattered right now in any significant way was Obi-Wan kneeling between his legs, that sweet mouth around his cock, the second finger sliding up inside him, the promise of more to come.

He knew he’d been greedy these past few—could it possibly be days?. Lords, he had been undeniably greedy, then, and sel— Obi-Wan had pulled back the foreskin of his cock and was rolling his tongue across the exposed crown. Qui-Gon lost his ability to think for a moment, until his lover stopped. —selfish. Yes, he’d been greedy and selfish, wanting to do all the exploring, wanting to watch his lover writhe and cry out knowing it had been his doing, wanting to finally do to Obi-Wan all the things he’d been fantasizing and dreaming about for so long, forgetting his lover had dreams and fantasies of hi— Obi-Wan’s fingers scissored him open slowly, stroked inside him again, were joined by a third. Qui-Gon moaned and arched his back off the mattress and bolster, almost up on his shoulders. —fantasies of his own. Apparently, this was one of them. His apprentice seemed to be enjoying it as much as he was. Obi-Wan worked his fingers expertly, stretching and teasing until Qui-Gon’s vision was red around the edges and he felt himself losing control. He bucked hard against those fingers, muscles pulsing, a vast need opening inside him. “Now, Love, for the Little Gods’ sake, now,” he cried. “I want you. Fill me. Come inside me. It’s been so long.”

 

Qui-Gon wanted and Obi-Wan gave. The younger man raised one of his lover’s legs to rest against his chest, pressed his own hot, hard, slick cock against the ring of muscle, then drove inward gently. A hard shudder of thrill overcame him as he watched Qui-Gon’s face go slack with pleasure and his back arch as he pushed himself tight against his lover’s ass, deep inside. Qui-Gon clutched at his hips, holding him still, muscles pulsing around his cock, pulling him impossibly deeper. Enveloped in that tight silky warmth, Obi-Wan felt a guttural groan rising in him.

It didn’t seem possible to either of them that they could be more a part of one another— Obi-Wan feeling Qui-Gon inside him again, his own muscles pulsing, stretched and filled, so he was not sure which of them was inside whom if he closed his eyes; Qui-Gon feeling not his own hand surrounding his cock, but Obi-Wan’s body, as it so perfectly had in the hours past. They stayed that way for long moments, stupefied, rocking a little together without realizing it. Finally, it was too much for Qui-Gon and he groaned and ground against his lover, “Obi-Wan . . .” he murmured in a voice so deep it was almost unrecognizable. “Please.”

Obi-Wan shook himself from the near-trance he had fallen into. “Yes,” he whispered, a little choked, and crossed the lifted leg to his other shoulder, tightening the passage and Qui- Gon’s buttocks around his cock and began to move inside him, breath leaving him in an animal groan with the first thrust. So tight. He hadn’t imagined— His master locked his other leg around his back, pulling him closer. They found the right rhythm together after only a few moments and Qui-Gon’s hand closed on his own cock, matching it. Obi-Wan gripped his lover’s thighs as he thrust harder and quicker, matching Qui-Gon’s movements, feeling his own orgasm rising through his groin and belly, upward through his spine, distantly aware of his master’s rising in tandem. He could see it moving through Qui-Gon as it moved through his own body, the bands of hard muscle over his belly tightening, the muscles in his chest flexing, shoulders pressing back into the mattress, neck curving gracefully backward, jaw opening, eyes rolling back, half closing . . .

As they hadn’t yet, they climaxed together this time, the energy flowing through and between them moiling the air like heat haze, making each of them somehow more distinct yet spectral and mirage-like to the other. They cried out each other’s names, Obi-Wan feeling his own final thrust and quiver and rush as though it were Qui-Gon’s inside him. He was losing himself this time, completely, melding with his lover’s body and spirit. Qui-Gon, in turn, felt himself filled with his lover’s climax as though it fed and were a necessary part of his own. Their shared orgasm rolled over him like a great, bright engulfing wave. He went under gladly.

They came back to themselves lying together, Obi-Wan cradled against Qui-Gon’s chest, sweat drying on both of them, neither of them certain how they’d come to that position. Qui-Gon felt as if his whole world had broken apart and been put together in an entirely new way; everything around him seemed subtly changed—brighter, cleaner, warmer.  _Right._ Obi-Wan could feel his tranquility through their bond and smiled to himself. It was just what he’d hoped to achieve. He shivered a little and Qui-Gon called the blankets up around them both again, stroking strong fingers over his back.

“Thank you, Love,” he said quietly. “Thank you,” and kissed the top of his head. “I’ve not felt so well-loved in a long time.”

“How long?” Obi-Wan ventured. When his inquiry was greeted with silence, he backpedaled quickly. “You needn’t answer, if I’m being nosy.”

But Qui-Gon appeared only to have been calculating, though the answer surprised Obi-Wan. “Three years before I met you, Love. A very long time indeed.”

“Who was it?” he pressed.  _Not Tahl,_ he thought.  _Then they didn’t sleep together._ “Whomever it was treated you badly.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Not to everyone. It’s hard for your lover to miss. You’re so surprised and so grateful—and so eager to please.”

Qui-Gon rolled him over and gave him a very appraising look. “I do believe you’re much better at reading people than I’ve given you credit for, Padawan.”

Obi-Wan blushed, as he always did when Qui-Gon gave him a genuine compliment. “Well, you, perhaps, if not people in general. It ended badly, didn’t it? I’m sorry.”

“Yes. With an ugly quarrel that had nothing to do with how we felt about each other. We never managed to make things right again. It put an unfortunate breach in our friendship as well.”

Several pieces of the puzzle that was Qui-Gon’s history snapped together in Obi-Wan’s head with those words. “Master Windu. That’s why you’re so harsh with one another now. I knew you’d been friends before, for a long time.”

Qui-Gon sighed. “And that is also why he’s so hard on you. And so disapproving of us.”

“You still care for him.” He ought to have felt some pang of jealousy, he thought, knowing that was true, but he found none in his heart.

“We were yearmates. We came up through the creche together, were chosen as padawans at the same time, came into our knighthoods within a year of each other. As you said, we’ve been friends a long time. Mace stood by me in some of my worst moments, and I in his.”

Only some, Obi-Wan thought, calculating. Not when he’d lost Xanatos. Not really, even, when he’d lost Tahl.  _Not when your old friend and former lover needed you most, Master Windu._ Where there had been no jealousy, a protective anger sprang up, instead.

Sensing it, Qui-Gon held him closely and kissed him. “Thank you for that indignation, Padawan, but let it go. I hurt Mace as much as he hurt me. Such quarrels are seldom one-sided. We both have words to answer for and we are both too stubborn for our own good. And I have you, now. And you are much more than just compensation, my love, lest you think that. You are a gift.” He wound Obi-Wan’s braid thoughtfully through his fingers. “But I must confess that I never knew the wrapping had so many uses,” he said, tickling his lover’s ear with it. Obi-Wan giggled and pushed his hand away.

“Stop it,” Obi-Wan said, stifling a yawn and letting himself be distracted. “I loved seeing your face as you came.” He reached up to run a finger down Qui-Gon’s throat, feeling his pulse beat there as he listened to the heart pumping it. “You seem so very alive then.”

“Ecstatic,” Qui-Gon murmured, “I believe, is the word.”

Obi-Wan smiled. “Yes, I believe it is.”


End file.
